Strawberry, Lemon, White Chocolate Cookies

I hadn’t ever had a fruity chocolate chip cookie before I stumbled upon Eric King’s Blueberry Cookie recipe. Now that Strawberries are coming into season here in the UK, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to adapt his recipe.

I swapped out the blueberry compote for a colourful strawberry one, added a hefty helping of lemon zest into the cookie dough and swapped out some of the flour for rolled oats as I love the chew of oats in a cookie. After a few trials, I ended up making a lemon sugar and rolling the cookies in it before baking for extra zing.

I played around a bit with the baking of these as my first few tries ended up in a very cakey cookie. I found the best way to bake them is the exact same as I would in a professional kitchen. Baking them from frozen ensures the middle stays slightly underdone. I also bang the baking tray when they’re straight out of the oven so that they fall. The result is a gooey middle while the edges remain crisp and golden. You get a little crunch from the lemon sugar along with pockets of sweet strawberry and creamy melted white chocolate.

Ingredients - makes 20 cookies
Recipe adapted from Eric King

Strawberry Compote:
230g fresh strawberries, hulled & quartered
50g caster sugar
1/2 tbsp of lemon juice

Cookie Dough:
225g unsalted butter, softened
300g caster sugar
2 lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 eggs
300g plain flour
80g rolled oats
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
160g white chocolate, chopped into chunks (plus more to top)
200g strawberry compote, recipe above
A handful of fresh strawberries, to top

Lemon Sugar:
100g caster sugar
1 lemon zest

Method
Start with the strawberry compote as it needs to chill down completely before making the cookies. Place all of the ingredients into a pan over low heat. Cook for approx. 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the strawberries have broken down and you have a thick compote. Pour into a container, cover and place in the fridge to chill completely.

For the cookies, cream together the butter, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla. Be careful not to over-cream the butter here or you’ll have cakey cookies. Beat in the eggs one at a time before adding in the flour, oats, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Mix to combine before then mixing through the white chocolate. Weigh the dough and split it in half. Take 100g of your strawberry compote and swirl it through one half of the dough. Repeat with the second dough and the other 100g of strawberry compote. Swirling your cookies like this means you’ll have even distribution of compote and not risk just stirring it into the dough.

Scoop the cookies onto a lined baking tray and freeze for at least 1 hour. When you’re ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 160°C. Mix together the lemon zest and sugar for the lemon sugar and set aside until needed.

Roll each cookie in the lemon sugar before arranging them on lined baking trays leaving a few inches between them. Place 3-4 small pieces of fresh strawberry on top of each before baking for 12-14 minutes. The key here is to slightly underbake your cookies or they’ll come out with a cakey texture. Once the cookies are golden around the edges but slightly underdone in the middle, remove them from the oven and bang the baking tray a few times on the counter so that the cookies fall.

Using a large cookie cutter, scoot the edges of each cookie in so that they’re all completely round. Top with a few pieces of chopped white chocolate while still warm. Cool and serve. They will keep at room temperature for up to 5 days.